Bonnie Dobson

Canadian born folk star Bonnie Dobson has lived in the UK since the late 60s and had effectively retired from the music scene (despite an appearance at Jarvis Cocker's Meltdown back in 2007) until she began recording a new album for the Hornbeam label in the summer of 2013. The album features her boys: top young UK folk rock musicians and a mix of old and new songs, all newly recorded at the analogue east London studios of producer Sean Read.

The heyday of American baroque pop – or chamber pop - ran from 1966 to the turn of the seventies. It used string quartets, harpsichords and woodwinds to create a summer-into-autumn melancholy that was quite new, and quite far removed from rock’n’roll as Eddie Cochran would have known it. Baroque pop’s musicians often came from a folk background, with an affinity for acoustic instrumentation. Linda Ronstadt's first band the Stone Poneys had introduced the autoharp to their line-ups in 1965, while the likes of Bonnie Dobson and Nico experimented with a string quartet’s, searching for different, post-electric Dylan directions.

Few concert runs (read: several shows in the same venue) are as highly lauded by Grateful Dead enthusiasts as February 27 through March 2, 1969, at the Fillmore West in San Francisco. Although the title Fillmore West 1969: The Complete Recordings is misleading – as they played there upward of two dozen times during the year – practically every second of their eight-set, four-night stand is captured on this ten-CD box.

Three CD collection. Notwithstanding one or two isolated exceptions, it wasn't until the mid-'60s that independent female voices really began to be heard within the music industry. Over the course of four hours and sixty tracks, Milk Of The Tree focuses on the music made in the late '60s and early '70s in both Britain and North America by either female solo artists or acts with featured female vocalists. Along the way, we encounter San Franciscan psychedelia, LA folk rock, Swinging London pop-folk, electric folk, progressive folk and even folk club folk as well as (of course) a plethora of singer- songwriters (including Various ladies of the Canyon) from the movement's golden age. As well as featuring most of the leading figures from both sides of the Atlantic, Milk Of The Tree includes many performers who received little attention at the time but who now have a cult reputation amongst collectors. A significant number of tracks were unreleased at the time, while the set also includes the first-ever appearance by pioneering female rock duo Emily Muff, two American girls who were based in England during the period in question but failed to land a recording contract. With a 44-page booklet crammed with rare photos and details of the Various acts featured, the clambox-housed Milk Of The Tree is not only a fascinating social document but, we hope, a hugely entertaining snapshot of a particular time, place and frame of mind that produced some enduring, spellbinding music.

Double CD, 52 track "cowboy folk opera" features a who's who of legendary Americana icons including Johnny Cash, Gretchen Peters, Guy Clark, Joe Ely, Tex Ritter, Dan Penn and many, many more.
For over four decades and 28 album releases Tom Russell has continued to live up to his status as "one of the best singer-songwriters of our time" (Washington Post). His previous two studio releases, Blood and Candle Smoke (2009) and Mesabi (2011), are considered his strongest composed works yet and were, in part, recorded with the groundbreaking roots band Calexico.